Joe and Lou's Travel Blog

Following a restful night in the country Jose gave us the grand tour of his country property. As we walked we sampled many fruits we have not had before (and I cannot remember their names) some were very nice, some were quite sour. One that was not sour at all was sugar cane. This looks like bamboo but when you strip back the bark there is a fiberous material inside. If you chew on this you can suck out the sweet, delicious juice.

On returning to Rio we headed downtown and made our way through the large bustling markets. These have stalls selling what you expect to see in most markets including clothes, CDs, DVDs, electronics, nick nacks and other tourist items. It is the scale that is amazing and how much they fit in their tiny, colourful stalls. One unusual site is the material and bead stores which cater for the carnival costumes. Looking at the prices of the beads a costume could be very expensive to make.

In our search to find a place to eat we looked at Colombo. This is a European style bakery/restaurant on two floors. The lower floor has floor to ceiling glass cabinets and mirrors. The upper floor is a restaurant. In the middle is a balcony to look down on the lower floor stained glass windows above. As we left (the prices were steep) a bus load of tourists arrived. We left just in time.